handsome, dark-haired teen to double over with a gasp of expelled breath. Ricky staggered forward for a moment, slumping against the man with a groan of pain, holding his gut.
In response the sec man simply laughed, shoving Ricky away. Still doubled over, Ricky smiled to himself as he pocketed the hunting blade he had lifted from the sheath at the man’s side. He had a weapon now; he only needed to find the right opportunity to use it.
Down below, Ryan, Doc and J.B. had been freed from the wag’s yoke and they were commanded forward at a slow march under the watchful eyes of two guards. Doc used his swordstick to steady himself—an added consideration since both his wrists and ankles were still tied, causing him to waddle a little like a penguin.
The three companions trudged to one of the ladders that scaled the ice wall, followed a few steps behind by two armed sec men. Close up, the ladder looked rotted, its wood peeling paint and showing dark patches where the damp had seeped inside.
“Like winter in Vermont,” Doc said as he took a wary step on the frozen ground and secured his grip on a lower rung of the ladder. “When my mother would make me clear the leaves from the roof gutters.”
Doc’s reminiscing again, J.B. thought. The man’s mind was sometimes in two places at once, thoughts of his home two hundred years ago often intruding in his present life. It was hard on Doc, trying to carve a life as a nomad like the others when he was so far from the world he knew. He was a learned man with numerous qualifications from his own time. Yet here in the Deathlands, there were things he still had trouble processing, such as man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.
Once Doc was a few feet up the ladder, the twin uprights shaking dangerously in place, J.B. was ordered to follow him, and then Ryan. The two men moved without complaint, but both remained alert to possibilities, searching for an escape.
The ladder towered sixty feet in the air, and as they climbed the companions got a closer look at the open mouths of the caves. People were huddled within, some peering out to see what the fuss was about. But the icy caverns seemed to stretch farther back than the faint starlight allowed them to see, and Ryan got the sense that there could very well be a whole community living within this block of ice; a ville in an ice tower block.
As they climbed, the companions saw, too, that there were shelflike ridges running horizontally along the front of the ice wall, just a couple of feet wide, connecting the cave mouths. Presumably, Ryan thought, there are more connections inside, like a rabbit’s warren.
In the lead, Doc reached the crest of the ladder first. A man and a woman waited there, watching the ill-matched line of men clamber up toward them. The man held a knife, the kind used for skinning small animals, and he thrust it in Doc’s face as the gray-haired man came within reach.
“You, keep moving,” the man growled. He wore warm, heavy clothes with a scarf over his neck that left his features bare, exposing the round face and ruddy features of an Inuit. “Hurry it up.”
Beside the man, the woman was working a longer knife with a wicked, serrated blade in her hand, using its point to work the dirt from under her nails in her other hand, which was clutched around the sleeping body of a newborn. She, too, had the black hair and features of an Inuit, and she spit something at Doc as he disengaged himself from the ladder, taking care not to drop his swordstick.
But what Doc saw at the top was enough to make him stop dead in his tracks.
“I said hurry it up,” the dark-faced man beside him growled as Doc stared.
Human bodies were hanging from the ceiling. Doc counted seven in all and each one was naked, the flesh turned a pale gray-pink from the cold, and each had a great hook thrust through their chest. Three women were there, their plump breasts sagging between either side of those vicious, two-inch-wide metal
In response the sec man simply laughed, shoving Ricky away. Still doubled over, Ricky smiled to himself as he pocketed the hunting blade he had lifted from the sheath at the man’s side. He had a weapon now; he only needed to find the right opportunity to use it.
Down below, Ryan, Doc and J.B. had been freed from the wag’s yoke and they were commanded forward at a slow march under the watchful eyes of two guards. Doc used his swordstick to steady himself—an added consideration since both his wrists and ankles were still tied, causing him to waddle a little like a penguin.
The three companions trudged to one of the ladders that scaled the ice wall, followed a few steps behind by two armed sec men. Close up, the ladder looked rotted, its wood peeling paint and showing dark patches where the damp had seeped inside.
“Like winter in Vermont,” Doc said as he took a wary step on the frozen ground and secured his grip on a lower rung of the ladder. “When my mother would make me clear the leaves from the roof gutters.”
Doc’s reminiscing again, J.B. thought. The man’s mind was sometimes in two places at once, thoughts of his home two hundred years ago often intruding in his present life. It was hard on Doc, trying to carve a life as a nomad like the others when he was so far from the world he knew. He was a learned man with numerous qualifications from his own time. Yet here in the Deathlands, there were things he still had trouble processing, such as man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.
Once Doc was a few feet up the ladder, the twin uprights shaking dangerously in place, J.B. was ordered to follow him, and then Ryan. The two men moved without complaint, but both remained alert to possibilities, searching for an escape.
The ladder towered sixty feet in the air, and as they climbed the companions got a closer look at the open mouths of the caves. People were huddled within, some peering out to see what the fuss was about. But the icy caverns seemed to stretch farther back than the faint starlight allowed them to see, and Ryan got the sense that there could very well be a whole community living within this block of ice; a ville in an ice tower block.
As they climbed, the companions saw, too, that there were shelflike ridges running horizontally along the front of the ice wall, just a couple of feet wide, connecting the cave mouths. Presumably, Ryan thought, there are more connections inside, like a rabbit’s warren.
In the lead, Doc reached the crest of the ladder first. A man and a woman waited there, watching the ill-matched line of men clamber up toward them. The man held a knife, the kind used for skinning small animals, and he thrust it in Doc’s face as the gray-haired man came within reach.
“You, keep moving,” the man growled. He wore warm, heavy clothes with a scarf over his neck that left his features bare, exposing the round face and ruddy features of an Inuit. “Hurry it up.”
Beside the man, the woman was working a longer knife with a wicked, serrated blade in her hand, using its point to work the dirt from under her nails in her other hand, which was clutched around the sleeping body of a newborn. She, too, had the black hair and features of an Inuit, and she spit something at Doc as he disengaged himself from the ladder, taking care not to drop his swordstick.
But what Doc saw at the top was enough to make him stop dead in his tracks.
“I said hurry it up,” the dark-faced man beside him growled as Doc stared.
Human bodies were hanging from the ceiling. Doc counted seven in all and each one was naked, the flesh turned a pale gray-pink from the cold, and each had a great hook thrust through their chest. Three women were there, their plump breasts sagging between either side of those vicious, two-inch-wide metal
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